Pretty in Purple

Misty and Maddie at two days old.
Maddie's registered name is Madrigal.

Zoey and Kate at 12 days old.
Kate's registered name is Canticle.

(BTW, Zoe is named for my mother, who likes duns/buckskins--"the ones with the dark legs and tan bodies." She gave me permission to name a horse after her, just not a pig--which is okay, 'cause I don't have any pigs.)

For the first few days, both mares and their fillies had their own pens, with access to a their foaling stalls. Everybody could see each other, and it was obvious that the babies wanted to play. So, when Maddie was three days old, and Kate was just hanging by the gate, I tried an experiment--I opened the gate and let Kate sneak in.

Now Misty had always bossed Zoe around, having been the mature one when we got baby Zoe. But I DIDN'T expect what happened next:

Rather than just move between Kate and her baby, Misty lunged, mouth gaping, for poor little Kate! Kate immediately ducked back for her mama, but Misty managed to grab Kate's hip and literally pick her up for a moment, before I could even hurl the manure bucket in my hand as HARD as I could to distract her.

Kate ended up with 16 pretty purple stitches!

A few weeks later when Kate managed to get a ginormous splinter of wood at the base of her ear, she officially earned the nickname "The Boo-Boo Baby" from the vet. (Incidently, her little sister Amy has since stolen that title. But that's another story....)